How iD Software revolutionised gaming: The untold story of Hovertank 3D to DooM

[@BandenIndarys]

DOOM was the first FPS as well as the first LAN game I ever played. I still play it even after 29 years.

[@ahrenmorris6053]

A missing chunk of this story is game editing tools they built to support their work. This was learning that was honed in the Commander Keen days with their in house level editor able to rapidly crank out content. It turned a “game” into a “game engine”. One that could be sub-licensed out to other game developers, further filling iD’s bank account for the cost of the paperwork. It’s this combination of cutting edge rendering tech and smart back-end editors that enabled iD to go from strength to strength as such a pace. And kinda set the model for the rest of the industry.

[@AlsGeekLab]

Indeed, I wanted to include things like TED in this video, however it would have made the content too long

[@Kevin-jb2pv]

That Inglourious Basterds bit was lifted directly from Civvie11's Wolfenstein video...

[@AlsGeekLab]

Yes, as per credited

[@urazoktay7940]

Amazing video, i enjoyed it thoroughly, thank you, i subscribed.

[@AlsGeekLab]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it! Check out my retro gaming playlist for more stuff you might enjoy!

[@urazoktay7940]

Ok i will, thank you.@@AlsGeekLab

[@mega408]

Thx for the history lesson. I grew up during this time period and saw all of this in real time. Oooh, it was super exciting! Wolfenstein was sooo amazing but it’s true that after awhile, it was just the same thing lol

[@theblastermaster5590]

Very nice. I played them all. While they are dated, in the day they changed my life. Great video.

[@AlsGeekLab]

Glad you enjoyed! Unfortunately the KZbin algorithm didn't favour the video as much as you, so if you feel it is worth a share on your social medias, I'd be much obliged!

[@BoothTheGrey]

Sorry, but I have to add something that you are missing. Doom was NOT the first game that pushed your PC hardware. You mentioned the Ultima Underworld - also from Origin there was Wing Commander which had a huge impact. Many people back then liked space shooter. For me its still shocking that Space Shooter almost completely are gone. But of course Doom was really important and the whole work of ID software. Thanks for your great vids anyway and wish you all the best for your channel.

[@AlsGeekLab]

This isn't a video about pushing the hardware, this is about the fps genre and how it got started.

[@BoothTheGrey]

@@AlsGeekLabYou mentined explicitly in the last few minutes how Doom was the first game to push hardware for the PC - I just added that there were other games that did this already this early in the PC era. You said that at 17:00 before Doom there was no need for many people to use a better or even High-End-PC. This is a very narrow and inaccurate claim about the early 90s. I was there. I got my first PC in early 1990 - a 386sx-16. with 1 MB RAM. There was no Doom but already other games but also other software that made people want better PCs. I updated to a 486dx-33 with back then absurd much 16 MB RAM end of 1991 - way before Doom was released. Like many others. In 1992 the DX2 was published. Especially WIndows 3.0 made a lot people want a better PC but also (as mentioned) Wing Commander and other software titles. So ... sorry... but this part of your video is just not quite accurate or at least a very narrow perspective.

[@joeking4206]

Wolfenstein was ace. The screams of the Nazis were hilarious. "Gott in Himmel!!" I once met John Carmac whilst i was working at Silicon Graphics. His cleverness was very obvious.

[@AlsGeekLab]

Would have been cool to meet him!

[@techdistractions]

Another great vid Al, well done 🎉 Catacomb Abyss was the first FPS I played on my 286. I had a CGA monitor but EGA graphics card (so 320x200x16) and it was mind blowing at the time..

[@AlsGeekLab]

I used the same configuration for a while. It worked quite well. Glad you liked the video 😀

[@fosterfoster770]

Great video, awesome content, keep it coming 👍🏻

[@AlsGeekLab]

Thanks so much!

[@RetroChiZ]

That was epic Ali

[@uriel666marco]

Nice little video. One thing. Quake was released in 1996 not 1995. 1995 was Dark Forces.

[@AlsGeekLab]

Thanks for the errata

[@UXXV]

Well played Al! Pun intended :D Always loved Wolf3D more than Doom and Keen 1 was my dads fave. Always remembered being told ID was from the id, ego and superego! Have you read Romero's book yet?

[@AlsGeekLab]

I haven't read it yet, really need to get round to it!

[@CybershamanX]

(17:21) (blink and you'll miss it) "Jules Sucks" Oh, those crazy kids. 😉 I guess there was a feud between Adrian Carmack and Tom Hall and Jules was Adrian's nickname? I'm going to have to read the book Masters of Doom again. 😎🤘

[@CybershamanX]

(18:40) Ah, yes. The famous door that John Carmack used a battle axe to chop through because John Romero had somehow locked himself in his office and couldn't get out. 🤣

[@CybershamanX]

Found the section of the book that talked about it: "This happened after Romero accidentally locked himself in his office. Hearing the pleas, Carmack gave the knob a twist, paused, then deduced the most obvious and immediate solution. “You know,” he said, “I do have a battle-ax in my office.” Carmack had recently paid five thousand dollars for the custom-made weapon-a razor-edged hatchet like something out of Dungeons and Dragons. As the other guys gathered around chanting, “Battle-ax! Battle-ax! Battle-ax!” Carmack chopped Romero free. The splintered door remained in the hall for months." - "Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture"

[@CybershamanX]

(18:07) Didn't Dark Forces license the Doom engine? 🤔

[@jeffyp2483]

you can circle strafe and use the mouse in wolf3d. i think most prefer all kb though, myself included

[@humanice2]

I also did watch the FPS documentary, but you added a few additional information and a time frame that was missing in the documentary. But everyone knows you could not look up and down in the original version, and in the documentary they also use mods that show hideous blurry textures on sprites, both when they were showing Doom and Hexen.

[@BandenIndarys]

14:53 This is not true, the mouse was supported in Wolfenstein 3D.

[@goonerw27]

It’s even shown in the video people playing with the mouse. It’s obvious when the player’s using the mouse for moving forwards/backwards in the examples. My other gripe with this video is the doom examples are showing the player looking up and down, something that is not possible until Heretic so the examples are using a source port.

[@gladspooky9455]

"The untold story"? Are you serious? Yeah, no one's ever told the story of iD Software before.

[@AlsGeekLab]

Did you watch the video? It's not about id software in its entirety, it's about a specific couple of games that many people are completely unaware of that made the fps genre. Namely Hovertank 3d and catacomb 3D

[@wowsnav]

It's sad to see how far modern id has fallen too, doom 2016 and doom eternal were terrible games that stole the Doom name to get more sales. I sometimes wonder if Hugo Martin even played the originals at all, because what him and his team made is so far from Doom it feels like they outsourced the entire project to a development team that speaks a different language, and poorly translated all the instructions for development with Google Translate. For fuck's sake, doom 2016 can't even render more than 12 enemies at a time, and Eternal isn't much higher than that. Doom 2 has teleport traps with 50+ enemies in them, one single teleport trap has more than 4x the maximum limit of doom 2016 and putting such a thing in that game would cause the engine to crash. They entirely forgot the core identity of Doom is fights with MANY enemies, 12 enemies is absolutely nothing for a Doom encounter, we're not playing Quake or a BUILD engine shooter here. id software is just one of many examples of the Ship of Theseus problem in video games: the name of that game developer you liked so much back in the day might still be the same, but none of the employees that made the games you liked work there any more, so are they even really the same developer anymore? I don't think so.

[@AlsGeekLab]

Totally agree. Only the same company in name.

[@workoutandread]

System shock wasn't a clone, it was just a better game and completely novel design. It made doom look like a pile of poorly designed and written shit.